Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Washington — The Obama administration approved the sale of most of bankrupt battery maker A123 Systems' assets to Chinese firm Wanxiang Group Corp.

The company's U.S. subsidiary, Chicago-based Wanxiang America, said it has received approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to complete its acquisition of substantially all of the non-government business assets of A123 Systems, Inc.

"We're pleased the government has completed its review and provided us with the go-ahead to finalize this transaction," said Pin Ni, president of Wanxiang America. "The future is bright for A123. It is a company with exceptional talent and potential, and Wanxiang America is committed to its long-term success and the continuance of its U.S. operations. Wanxiang America looks forward to closing the transaction and to continuing to foster the technologies A123 has worked so hard to develop."

In December, Wanxiang won a bankruptcy court auction to acquire most of A123 for $256.6 million, including its grid and commercial business assets and its U.S. facilities in Michigan, Massachusetts and Missouri.

A123 had vowed to create 3,000 jobs by the end of 2012, but only has 1,300. It won $249.1 million in grants from the Obama administration in 2009 to build battery plants in Romulus and Livonia, but has only spent $132 million. It also received more than $125 million in tax credits and funding from the state of Michigan.

Navitas Systems, a Woodridge, Ill.-based company, has agreed to buy A123's Ann Arbor-based government business, including all U.S. military contracts for $2.25 million.

President Barack Obama hailed A123 and even invited the company's CEO to the Rose Garden in April 2010.

"This is what happens when we place our bets on American workers and American businesses. And we're going to continue working to help them manufacture more success stories like these across all sectors of our economy," Obama said.

A123 filed for bankruptcy in October and initially sought approval to sell the bulk of itself to Johnson Controls Inc. in less than six weeks.

A123 has 625 employees at plants in Romulus and Livonia and an Ann Arbor office, along with 348 temporary workers in the state.

The Waltham, Mass., startup — which has lost $900 million since 2007 — received $50 million in debtor in possession financing from Wanxiang.

In November, Michigan's two senators and 11 House members raised concerns that the acquisition of bankrupt battery maker A123 by a Chinese company may pose a "threat to U.S. national security."

In a letter to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner — who chairs the Committee on Foreign Investment, which reviews the sale of U.S. companies — Sens. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, and members of the House raised concerns.

Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Zeeland, said Tuesday the decision hasn't "changed my opinion that the core technology developed by A123 and the intellectual property that goes along with it can be separated along A123's business lines. It is also apparent that this technology was developed using taxpayer dollars through President Obama's stimulus program and is now falling into the hands of a foreign company. American taxpayers should not be funding technology that will in turn be used in competition against American companies."

Huizenga said he is "currently looking into legislative solutions to prevent both taxpayer-funded and sensitive technologies from being sold to foreign companies in the future."

The company is the latest in a string of advanced battery firms that have gone bankrupt despite millions of dollars in subsidies from state governments and the Bush and Obama administrations.

In January, New York-based Ener1 filed for bankruptcy protection. A similar filing was made in March by Canada-based Azure Dynamics, which has offices in Oak Park and installs the battery electric powertrain in Ford's Transit Connect.

The Obama administration awarded $2.4 billion in stimulus grants in August 2009 for advanced batteries and electric vehicles, saying the awards would create thousands of jobs.

The president set a goal of 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015, but sales have totaled fewer than 40,000 since 2011. Many battery suppliers have created a small fraction of the promised jobs.

Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.

The Goals of Communism

(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.